Family Asks Judge to Find Mafia Boss Mentally Ill

By SELWYN RAAB

Published: December 29, 1989

In ranking the Mafia hierarchy, law-enforcement authorities put Vincent (the Chin) Gigante near the top - the undisputed boss of the Genovese family. He is now a target of a Federal investigation.

But Mr. Gigante's relatives deny that he is a mobster, and they have petitioned a New York State judge to declare him mentally incompetent.

A psychiatrist retained by the relatives said in an affidavit that Mr. Gigante ''suffers from auditory and visual hallucinations and delusions of persecution.'' His brother the Rev. Louis Gigante, a South Bronx priest, has asked to be appointed to manage his brother's affairs.

''He's crazy like a fox,'' Jules J. Bonavolonta, the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's organized crime and narcotics division in New York, said in an interview. ''As far as we're concerned, he's still the boss of the family and this could be a legal move to avoid an indictment.''

The F.B.I. is investigating Mr. Gigante, and lawyers say the question of his mental competence could affect the inquiry. It could also affect a current civil racketeering lawsuit brought against him by Federal prosecutors in New Jersey.

Federal and state prosecutors lack the legal right to intervene in the state proceedings. They could contest the claim of mental incompetency only if it is raised by Mr. Gigante's lawyers at a criminal trial.

A court-appointed guardian, Peter T. Wilson, said yesterday that he would soon submit a report on Mr. Gigante's condition to Phyllis Gangel-Jacob, an Acting State Supreme Court Justice in Manhattan, who will rule on Mr. Gigante's competency.

Law-enforcement officials said that Mr. Gigante has behaved oddly in public for two decades. In Greenwich Village, where the graying Mr. Gigante spends much of his time, he has been seen walking in a stooped posture, muttering to himself and sometimes dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe.

Federal investigators and New York City police detectives maintain that Mr. Gigante has feigned mental illness to discourge scrutiny and potential indictments. Lawyers noted that a ruling that Mr. Gigante is mentally incompetent could be cited later as a reason for dismissing criminal charges if they are brought against him.

A court decision that Mr. Gigante's property should be managed by other people could complicate attempts by prosecutors to confiscate his holdings if he were indicted on racketeering charges. Under provisions of the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, assets of defendants can be seized by the government if a judge finds they were obtained illegally.

Father Gigante, who has denied that his brother is a mobster, said in an affidavit that Vincent Gigante possessed ''no real or personal property.'' 'He Is Not Acting'

Last February, Father Gigante, who is 57, filed an application in State Supreme Court in Manhattan to declare his brother incompetent. Barry I. Slotnick, a lawyer for Father Gigante, said that Vincent Gigante had undergone heart surgery in the summer and that his mental and physical conditions have deteriorated since February.

''The F.B.I. and everybody else in law enforcement realizes that Mr. Gigante is among the sick, the sore, the lame and the disabled,'' Mr. Slotnick said in an interview. ''He is not acting.''

No hearing has been held in the case. The only medical report made public so far in the proceedings was an affidavit by a psychiatrist, Dr. Eugene D'Adamo, in support of Father Gigante's request. Dr. D'Adamo, whose office is in Rye, in Westchester County, said in the affidavit that he has been the ''primary treating psychiatrist'' for Mr. Gigante for the last six years.

Since 1969, Dr. D'Adamo noted, Vincent Gigante had been treated 20 times for psychiatric disorders at St. Vincent's Hospital in Harrison, in Westchester County. ''Vincent Gigante has been diagnosed since 1969 as suffering from schizophrenia, paranoid type with period acute exacerbations which result in hospitalization,'' Dr. D'Adamo said in his affidavit. Called 'Current Boss'

Father Gigante, in his affidavit, said his brother, was being cared for chiefly by himself and his 88-year-old mother, Yolanda, with whom Vincent Gigante lives in an apartment at 225 Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village.

Mr. Gigante's wife, Olympia Grippa, lives in Old Tappan, N.J.; they have five adult children.

Investigators say that in recent years Mr. Gigante has rarely been seen in Old Tappan, a community in Northern Bergen County. F.B.I. agents and detectives say he has often spent evenings in a white-brick, four-story town house at 67 East 77th Street, near Park Avenue. City real-estate records list the owner of the building as Olympia Esposito, who purchased it in 1983 for $490,000.

The application to declare Mr. Gigante incompetent was filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan one day before the United States Attorney's office in New Jersey brought a civil RICO suit against him in Federal District Court in Newark last February. The suit identifies Mr. Gigante as the ''current boss'' of the Genovese Crime Family and seeks to enjoin him from trying to influence or control labor unions and their employee benefit plans. Findings in Three Weeks

The Justice Department and New York and New Jersey law-enforcement officials say that the Genovese family for decades has dominated many teamster, waterfront and construction unions in both states and has obtained illicit profits by guaranteeing labor peace to companies and by plundering union welfare funds.

In the New Jersey case, Mr. Slotnick has asked that Mr. Gigante be declared incompetent to stand trial.

Mr. Wilson, who is a lawyer, said in an interview that he expected to submit his findings in the next three weeks to Justice Gangel-Jacob. The report, he said, would summarize conclusions of psychiatrists and physicans retained by Mr. Gigante's relatives to treat him.

The judge has the authority to declare Mr. Gigante incompetent and to appoint Father Gigante or others to oversee his affairs. She also can order additional examinations by court-appointed psychiatrists.

In 1959, Mr. Gigante was convicted of heroin trafficking and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Among the country's traditional organized-crime groups, the Genovese family, with about 250 ''sworn'' or made members is second in size and influence only to the Gambino group, according to the F.B.I. Law-enforcement officials say Mr. Gigante has been running the Genovese family since the early 1980's.

Photo of Vincent (the Chin) Gigante, in pajamas and a bathrobe, walking with his chauffeur outside a town house at 67 East 77th Street, where he often stays. (The Village Voice)